Synopsis/blurb.....
Ten plate-steel short stories with a beating heart. A great mixture of noir, crime, humour and slice-of-life dramas.
McDroll’s crime fiction has a nip of noir and a splattering of Scottish humour and can be found floating around in the digital world, most notably in Shotgun Honey, All Due Respect and Near To The Knuckle. Other stories can be found in the anthologies Off the Record, The Lost Children, Burning Bridges and True Brit Grit.
McDroll is the author of the crime novella The Wrong Delivery and the short story collections Kick It Together and Kick It With Conviction.
A shortish collection of stories from Scottish writer McDroll.
1. The Glasgow Bus ….. a couple of criminal geniuses (not) on a day trip
2. Primroses At My Feet ….. hmm, beyond my ken this one - a relationship? a meeting?
3. Third Party Insurance …. love and obsession, a white van and jealousy
4. Gone ….. hmm hard to summarise, an intervention from a good Samaritan is ignored. Fantastic sense of place - the sea, the wind, the weather
5. Burying My Children ….. malt whisky, grief and a laying to rest
6. An Angel’s Face ….. domestic violence, a fearful existence, a tragic accident, nothing more to lose
7. A Promise Is A Promise …. "Revenge was sweet and a little evil now and then felt so good."
8. Fishing For Trouble … abandonment, fly-fishing, a pervert and a comeuppance
9. More Than A Bargain ….. a lost family and a new hobby
10. Bleeding Lipstick …. a short con and one of Strathclyde’s finest
Ten in total, the majority with a great sense of place and setting. I could feel the wind and the spray of the sea as I read. Powerful, evocative descriptions and all in a few short pages. There’s a mix of stories with some hard-hitting tales and some slightly less serious and a couple if I’m honest I didn’t really get. That said I enjoyed the collection and will read more from the author in the future.
4 from 5
Read in April, 2018
Published - 2013
Page count - 68
Source - purchased copy
Format - Kindle
This sounds like a solid collection, Col. It takes talent to be able to evoke a place that well in a short story. And I'm glad you liked them overall.
ReplyDeleteCheers Margot. I think with every collection there's going to be a few hits and the odd miss. More to like than dislike.
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